[Toybox] Pocket workstations.

[David Seikel]

On Fri, 15 Jun 2012 20:25:13 +1000 David Seikel <onefang at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:48:25 -0600 Rob Landley <rob at landley.net>
> wrote:
> 
> > On 03/07/2012 06:34 AM, David Seikel wrote:
> 
> <lots of cutting>
> 
> > > (Personally I'd also want a touch screen I can use my finger nails
> > > as the precision pointing implements they are and not be forced to
> > > use fat fingertips.  But that's just me.  lol)
> > > 
> > > Can you point to some examples of the pocket workstations and
> > > docking stations that you talk about?  Preferably something us
> > > Linux hackers can hack on freely without jail breaking and other
> > > warranty voiding nonsense?
> > 
> > For keyboard and mouse, yes.  Those are standardized.  Network and
> > external storage, reasonably standard too.
> > 
> > Video and audio, I'm not the guy to ask. :)
> 
> Video I would not WANT to squeeze through a single USB port that is
> also being used for network and storage.  Just ain't enough bandwidth.
> Audio at least I'm happy with what goes in and out of the audio jack,
> which seems to be mostly standardised now.
> 
> Seems that the USB port on modern phones is also being used for video
> and audio via something called MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link),
> which is 1080p video, 7.1 audio, power, and remote controller
> routing, with an option for HDCP.  The big problem is that all
> devices I have seen with support for that use the one and only micre
> USB socket, but can't do USB at the same time.
> 
> That still leaves WiFi and Bluetooth for the other stuff.  The next
> smart phone I have my eye on you can get an attachment that lets you
> send the video over WiFi.  Not sure if that's some sort of standard,
> or just a special widget for the Samsung Galaxy III.
> 
> All could be done without kernel hacking.  So there are options, but
> there are also still gotchas.

I got my new smart phone now, time to start putting all this theory
into practice.

I want to turn it into a self hosting development system / portable PC
replacement.  You can at least already develop Android apps on it
directly (I already did a "hello world" trivially with an IDE app), and
I think I saw a gcc app in the Google market place.  Don't think it
would be hard to get Aboriginal Linux compiled and working on the
thing, but so far I have not found any useful dual boot stuff for
Android.  So it will be one OS, or the other, or run Aboriginal with the
Android kernel in a chroot.

That video over WiFi thing I mention is a wanabe standard that Samsung
at least is trying to get an early lock in on.  A bunch of companies
are working on it using Direct WiFi as the base, but the actual details
are being kept secret for now.  I've not actually bought it yet.  It
plugs into a HDMI monitor and you send video to it over direct WiFi.
I'm guessing you can't be using normal WiFi networking at the same time.

The main problem I am seeing right now with the "just use a hub"
approach is that the USB standards are against the particular
combination I need right now.  At least according to my recollection,
and a little bit of research.  More research is needed.  My existing
powered HUB has a mini B socket, my phone has a micro B socket.  You
are not supposed to hook those two together directly.  In fact, I'm not
so certain it's that easy to find USB hubs that come with the host
connector being anything the USB standard says you are allowed to use
to hook to a typical phone micro B USB socket.  Not with commonly
available off the shelf components.  There are non standard USB cables,
but only for popular things.  This is not popular yet.

Powered hubs send power downstream to peripherals, not upstream to the
host.  The host in this case is the phone, so you are running on
battery power and not charging it.  My saving grace here is that the
Samsung Galaxy S3 (the phone I bought) has a wireless charging system,
but it's not a good thing in the general case.  I've not got the
wireless charging device yet.

Unlike laptops, phones seem to be designed to be useless without a
battery.  Of the three I have here -  My ancient Android's battery has
died and the phone is now a lifeless paperweight, it wont run from AC
coz the battery is dead.  The new Android won't run off AC with the
battery out, though the "phone turned off, AC plugged in" animation
shows on the screen, it just refuses to turn on.  My old non smart
phone just got really confused when I tried it on AC with no battery,
but again would refuse to turn on.  Was briefly amusing to watch the
odd flickering while it shifted from "charging but not turned on" to
"what battery?" modes.

Welcome to the bleeding edge.  On the other hand, it looks like this
sort of thing is precisely what Microsoft is targeting with it's new
Surface tablet.  Everything else is just a complete failure of
imagination, or just trying to lock you into expensive services.

Capacitive touch screens still suck.  My new Android's screen is four
times the size of the one on my old Android, which was resistive.  My
finger tips are about ten times the size of my finger tips.  So they
cover up a much larger proportion of the screen.  Usually also covering
the thing I'm trying to poke at.  This is not a forward step.  A
capacitive pen is still a fat tip, so it helps, but not much.

-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.
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